Nazim Hikmet
Nazim Hikmet was born on January 15, 1902 in Salonika, Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloníki, Greece), where his father served in the Foreign Service. He was exposed to poetry at an early age through his artist mother and poet grandfather, and had his first poems published when he was seventeen.
Raised in Istanbul, Hikmet left Allied-occupied Turkey after the First World War and ended up in Moscow, where he attended the university and met writers and artists from all over the world. After the Turkish Independence in 1924 he returned to Turkey, but was soon arrested for working on a leftist magazine. He managed to escape to Russia, where he continued to write plays and poems.
In 1928 a general amnesty allowed Hikmet to return to Turkey, and during the next ten years he published nine books of poetry—five collections and four long poems—while working as a proofreader, journalist, scriptwriter, and translator. He left Turkey for the last time in 1951, after serving a lengthy jail sentence for his radical acts, and lived in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, where he continued to work for the ideals of world Communism.
After receiving early recognition for his patriotic poems in syllabic meter, he came under the influence of the Russian Futurists in Moscow, and abandoned traditional forms while attempting to “depoetize” poetry.
Many of his works have been translated into English, including Human Landscapes from My Country: An Epic Novel in Verse (2009), Things I Didn’t Know I Loved (1975), The Day Before Tomorrow (1972), The Moscow Symphony (1970), and Selected Poems (1967). In 1936 he published Seyh Bedreddin destani (“The Epic of Shaykh Bedreddin”) and Memleketimden insan manzaralari (“Portraits of People from My Land”).
Hikmet died of a heart attack in Moscow in 1963. The first modern Turkish poet, he is recognized around the world as one of the great international poets of the twentieth century.
“You Are My DrunkennessYou are my drunkenness... I did not sober up, as if I can do that; I don't want to anyway. I have a headache, my knees are full of scars I am in mud all around I struggle to walk towards your hesitant light.”
“MY WOMAN My woman came with me as far as Brest,she got off the train and stayed on the platform,she grew smaller and smaller,she became a kernel of wheat in the infinite blue,then all I could see were the tracks. Then she called out from Poland, but I couldn't answer,I couldn't ask, "Where are you, my rose, where are you?""Come," she said, but I couldn't reach her,the train was going like it would never stop,I was choking with grief. Then patches of snow were rotting on sandy earth,and suddenly I knew my woman was watching :"Did you forget me," she asked, "did you forget me?"Spring marched with muddy bare feet on the sky. Then stars lighted on the telegraph wires,darkness dashed the train like rain,my woman stood under the telegraph poles,her heart pounding as if she were in my arms,the poles kept disappearing, she didn't move,the train was going like it would never stop,I was choking with grief. Then suddenly I knew I'd been on that train for years- I'm still amazed at how or why I knew it -and always singing the same great song of hope,I'm forever leaving the cities and women I love,and carrying my losses like wounds opening inside me,I'm getting closer, closer to somewhere.”
“THE GREAT HUMANITYThe great humanity is the deck-passenger on the ship third class on the train on foot on the causeway the great humanity.The great humanity goes to work at eight marries at twenty dies at forty the great humanity.Bread is enough for all except the great humanity rice the same sugar the same cloth the same books the same are enough for all except the great humanity.The great humanity has no shade on his soil no lamp on his road no glass on his windowbut the great humanity has hope you can't live without hope.”
“Let's give the world to the children just for one daylike a balloon in bright and striking colours to play withlet them play singing among the starslet's give the world to the childrenlike a huge apple like a warm loaf of breadat least for one day let them have enoughlet's give the world to the childrenat least for one day let the world learn friendshipchildren will get the world from our handsthey'll plant immortal trees- "Let's Give the World to the Children”
“THE WEEPING WILLOWFlowing was the watershowing in its mirror the willow trees.The weeping willows in the water were washing their hair!Striking the willows with their sparkling, bare swordsthe red horsemen were running to where the sun sets!Suddenlylike a bird as if struck in the winga wounded horseman rolled down from his horse!He didn't shout,he did'nt call back those who go along,he just looked with brimming eyes at the shining horseshoes of departing riders!O what a pity! What a pity for him thatno more he shall lie on the foaming necks of galloping horses,no more he shall play his sword behind the white armies!The sounds of the horseshoes fades away slowly,the horsemen vanish at where the sun sets! Horsemen horsemen red horsemen,their horses winged with wind! Their horses winged with...Their horses winged...Their horses...Horse... Life has passed like the wind winged horsemen!The voice of the flowing water ceased.The shadows shadowed the colours wiped off.Black coverings came down over his blue eyes,the weeping willows hung down over his yellow hair!Weep not weeping willow weep not,in the mirror of the black water clasp not your hands! clasp not your hands! weep not!”
“Living is no laughing matter:You must take it seriously.So much so and to such a degreethat, for example, your hands tiedbehind your back,your back to the wallor else in a laboratoryin your white coat and safety glasses,you can die for people –even for people whose faces you’venever seen,even though you know livingis the most real, most beautifulthing.I mean, you must take living soseriouslythat even at seventy, for example, you’llplant olive trees –and not for your children, either,but because, although you fear death youdon’t believe it,because living, I mean, weighs heavier.- "On Living”